Perhaps the most telling attack on the generals came from Stephen Herbits, a former top executive of the Seagram liquor empire, the fiefdom of World Jewish Congress chief Edgar Bronfman,
a major patron of Israel. This longtime Bronfman henchman was appointed
by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to make "heads roll" in the
military, screening all Pentagon promotions and appointments,
implementing the agenda of enforcing lockstep Zionist control of the
American war machine.

Writing in the April 2, 2006 edition of the egregiously pro-Israel Washington Times, Herbits urged the media to start to investigate military leaders who dared to take on the administration. Herbits said it would be "a service to this country when the media digs a bit below these attacks to examine the generals."

Herbits
was obviously calling on spy agencies such as the Anti-Defamation
League (ADL), a conduit for Israel's Mossad, to come up with "data" on
the military men and provide it to the media to bring the dissidents
into line.

Incidentally,
because Herbits was openly gay and a long-time public advocate for the
cause of homosexual rights, there are those who believe that the very
reason Herbits had been drafted by the Bush administration to institute
so-called "reform" at the Pentagon was so that military figures who
opposed Herbits' intrigues at the Pentagon on behalf of the
Zionist apparatus would be less likely to criticize the Bronfman family
henchman for fear of being accused of anti-gay bias in the event they
did dare to challenge Herbits primary agenda: rooting out perceived
enemies of Israel inside the American military elite. And
it is worth noting that after Herbits ultimately left the Bush
administration, he returned to the Bronfman fold, taking on the post of
secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress, demonstrating where
Herhits' primary political sympathies lie.

(Michael Collins Piper, "Revolt of the Generals: America's Military Elite Take a Stand Against Israel's American Partisans", in THE GOLEM, Chapter Fifteen)

The most significant move Bronfman made is to appoint Seagram's former
executive vice president for external affairs, Stephen E. Herbits, as transition manager. Herbits will direct the WJC's administrative affairs until the new constitution is
fully implemented.
In the memorandum, Bronfman recounts Herbits' ample experience in
transition management, based on his work as a consultant to the United
States Department of Defense, where he helped manage the transition in
2001 from the Clinton administration to Bush's.
http://haaretz.com/print-edition/news/edgar-bronfman-outlines-his-plan-to-revolutionize-wjc-1.133601

Stephen Herbits wasn't
surprised to hear his old friend Donald Rumsfeld on the other end of
the phone line. The newly appointed secretary of Defense was calling in
January 2001 to enlist Herbits in a familiar role: overseeing Pentagon hiring in
the Bush administration. It was a task that Herbits, who has known Rumsfeld for more than 30 years, has performed for every Republican president since Richard Nixon.

He noted also that Herbits, described by Bronfman as his “right-hand
man” at Seagrams, the Bronfman family company, is less than objective about the matter. Herbits,
whose professional record includes stints as adviser to three U.S.
Defense Department heads, has insisted that his work will speak for his
integrity.

http://thejewishweek.com/news/international/wjc_conflict_seen_intensifying
A former top adviser to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Bronfman's right-hand man at Seagram, Herbits was brought into the WJC three years ago to clean up things amid charges of mismanagement.

"Notably, one American Jewish writer summed up the Zionist dreams
guiding the Bush policy, particularly vis-à-vis Iraq, for Time magazine,
a publication that is controlled by Jewish financial interests
revolving around the powerful family of Edgar Bronfman, longtime head of
the World Jewish Congress. In an essay entitled “How Israel is Wrapped
Up in Iraq,” Time columnist Joe Klein wrote with candor:

A
stronger Israel is very much embedded in the rationale for war with
Iraq. It is a part of the argument that dare not speak its name, a
fantasy quietly cherished by the neo-conservative faction in the Bush
Administration and by many leaders of the American Jewish community.The
fantasy involves a domino theory. The destruction of Saddam’s Iraq will
not only remove an enemy of long-standing but will also change the
basic power equation in the region. It will send a message to Syria and
Iran about the perils of support for Islamic terrorists. It
will send a message to the Palestinians too: Democratize and make peace
on Israeli terms, or forget about a state of your own. In the wackiest
scenario, it will lead to the collapse of the wobbly Hashemite monarchy
in Jordan and the establishment of a Palestinian state on that nation’s
East Bank. No
one in the government ever actually says these things publicly
(although some American Jewish leaders do). Usually, the dream is
expressed in the mildest possible terms: “I have high hopes that the
removal of Saddam will strengthen our democratic allies in the region,”
Senator Joe Lieberman told me last week. (Time.com 5 Feb 2003)

Bronfman’s War on the U.S. Military

Alongtime
Bronfman henchman at Seagrams, Stephen Herbits, was recruited by
then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to make “heads roll” in the
military, screening Pentagon promotions and appointments, enforcing Zionist control of the U.S. war machine.
This move on the military
came in 2006 when top retired American military leaders publicly slammed
the Bush administration for waging war against Iraq, making it clear
they spoke formany colleagues still in the Pentagon who opposed the war
from the start.
Herbits urged the media to investigate military
leaders who dared to take on the administration. Saying it would be “a
service to this country when the media digs a bit below these attacks to
examine the generals,” Herbits was sending a warning: Military leaders
who stood up against civilian warmongers promoting the interests of
Israel were subject to investigation by spy agencies such as the
Anti-Defamation League which could come up with “data” on the dissidents
to destroy them.
After doing his dirty work, Herbits returned to the
Bronfman fold, serving as secretary-general of the World Jewish
Congress and thus Bronfman’s subservient minion. (Michael Collins Piper, for American Free Press)

Murder Discussed at High-Level Bronfman Meeting

In
2005 New York magazine noted Edgar Bronfman “belongs to one of the
world’s most exclusive clubs, an impossibly elite gathering known as the
‘Mega Group.’ It consists of about a dozen inconceivably rich Jews who
get together several times a year, often in either Bronfman’s or [CBS
owner] Larry Tisch’s apartment. . . .”

In 1990, an unexpected source advised Andrew St. George—chief
correspondent for The Spotlight (forerunner of AFP)—there had been a
high-level meeting at Bronfman’s New York apartment attended by top
financial patrons and leaders of the Zionist movement. (This was the
“Mega Group” although its name was not then known.) Devoted to combating
the purported “rise of anti-Semitism,” the meeting’s participants
included financier Felix G. Rohatyn and Jacques Torczyner, president of the Zionist Organization of America.

Andrew’s source told him
Torczyner said, in words to these effect: “It’s time that we put a stop
to Willis Carto and his newspaper, The Spotlight.” Torczyner said
specifically that Carto and his associates should be “hunted and shot
like quail.”

Torczyner’s candor disturbed at least some of his fellow power brokers who responded, “We can’t use the tactics of our enemies.”

In
fact, it was the aforementioned Rohatyn who told St. George about the
meeting. A longtime newsman, St. George knew many people, Rohatyn among
them.

St. George took the story to Carto and Mark Lane, The Spotlight’s anti-Zionist Jewish attorney, who wrote a letter
to Torczyner warning him against making further threats. Still, a
continuing campaign to destroy The Spotlight culminated with the
populist weekly driven out of business in 2001. Thank goodness, AFP
picked up The Spotlight’s fallen torch.

Carto
had reason to be concerned: Bronfman fingerprints were all over the JFK
assassination conspiracy. For the tip of that iceberg, read “Rothschild-Israeli Ties to JFK” in the December 9 &16, 2013 issue of AFP. (Michael Collins Piper, for American Free Press)

Death of the Liquor King:The life, times and misdeedsof Edgar Bronfman Sr.A devout Talmudic Jew, Edgar Bronfman bankrolledmany Zionist causes over the years with the billions ofdollars he made hawking Canadian booze.THE KING OF THE JEWS IS DEAD• Edgar Bronfman—one of the world’s most powerful Zionists—finally dies
By Michael Collins Piper
The
patriarch of a crime syndicate-connected empire that has operated in
the sphere of the Rothschild dynasty is dead. On Dec. 22, Edgar M.
Bronfman—longtime head of the World Jewish Congress—died at age 84. New
York magazine once described him as a “sometimes coarse, bullying
businessman” but noted “there are some people who would simply call him
king of the Jews.”
Rabbi Mishael Zion has hailed Bronfman as “a
modern Talmudic Jew,” noting Bronfman’s favorite book was the Babylonian
Talmud, the hero of which, the rabbi admitted, is not God but the
“cunning human scholar.” Praising Bronfman’s work funding scholarships
for Jewish youth, the rabbi said Bronfman was “the person who invited us
to live Talmudically in the modern world.”
This recalls Meyer
Rothschild, founder of the dynasty with whom Bronfman’s family has had a
long association. An admiring biographer once said Rothschild was “a
zealous believer in the Talmud and chose it alone as the guiding
principle of all his actions.”
It is thus fitting that Bronfman
biographer Peter C. Newman said the Bronfmans were “the Rothschilds of the
New World,” estimating in 1978 that Bronfman assets totaled some $7
billion. In fact, Edgar Bronfman had a level of clout few could claim,
precisely because of his front-line positioning in the Zionist movement
and his family’s pivotal historic role in the crime syndicate.
Edgar
was son of Sam Bronfman who immigrated to Canada from Russia and made
his fortune in liquor, gambling, prostitution and drugs. Going
“legitimate” when he assumed control of the Montreal-based Seagram
distillery, Sam forged links with the New York crime syndicate headed by
another Russian Jew, Meyer Lansky, and during Prohibition supplied—and
thus controlled—the “spigot” of liquor funneled into the U.S. and
distributed by the Lansky mob.
In many border towns in the northern
U.S there are family fortunes accumulated by locals who were part of the
Bronfman network. And in the big cities, a connection with this
syndicate was a “must.” In Detroit, the “little Jewish navy” of Morris
Dalitz—later Lansky’s top man in Las Vegas—ferried Bronfman booze into
the U.S.
Even Chicago’s celebrated Italian-American gangster, Al
Capone, owed his rise to his own Bronfman connection. It was Lansky who
sent Capone to Chicago from New York in the first place, assigned to
work for Johnny Torrio (Bronfman’s Chicago contact) who was moving to
unseat “Big Jim” Colosimo as Italian-American Mafia chief in the Windy
City.
Colosimo had alienated Lansky and Bronfman—whom he called
“dirty Jews”—by asserting there was “no future in bootlegging,” showing
little interest in patronizing Bronfman liquor, preferring to focus on
drugs, prostitution and loan-sharking.
So a Jewish hitman from New
York “retired” Big Jim and soon enough, Bronfman liquor flowed into
Chicago. The media lionized Capone, but the Chicago mob, thenceforward,
was dominated by behind-the-scenes Jewish bosses.
In any case,
Bronfman plowed his ill-gotten gains into legitimate enterprises,
establishing his family as major patrons of Israel and expanding their
power on American shores.
When Sam died, Edgar assumed family
leadership and—though little known to the public—was one of the most
powerful figures on the planet.
Today, his legacy lives on.
Aside
from wheeler-dealer son, Edgar Jr., son Matthew chairs the board of the
World Jewish Congress and is a controlling shareholder of one of
Israel’s largest banks, Israel Discount Bank, and other Israeli
enterprises. Son Adam directs a family foundation and lives off family
wealth. Daughter Holly—interestingly—shares the same high-powered Texas lawyer as media icon Alex Jones.
Bronfman bankrolled Mort Zuckerman,
now a billionaire, who in turn bankrolled Dan Snyder, now billionaire
owner of the Washington Redskins football team. They, too, are Bronfman
heirs in their own respect.

The Bronfmans held an interest in the Ernest W. Hahn Co. (which operated 27 shopping centers in California and had plans for another 29) and the Trizec Corp., one of North America’s biggest property development companies.

They controlled the Shannon Mall in Atlanta and the Galleria in Westchester, N.Y. and a shopping center in Hickory, N.C. Bronfman controlled industrial parks in and near Los Angeles, office towers in Denver and San Francisco, and housing developments in Nevada, California and Florida, as well as Houston-based General Homes Consolidated, building houses in Mississippi and Alabama.

And they owned vast tracts of land in Virginia outside Washington, D.C.

And although the famous “Du Pont” name appeared on company products, the real power behind the scenes was Bronfman who—not content with owning 20% of the distinguished institution—took complete control in 1981, ultimately divesting his holdings.

Bronfman’s Stranglehold on the Media

It
was inevitable Bronfman’s Seagram Co. would purchase a controlling
interest in Time-Warner in 1993. Mob-connected Bronfman associates had
already moved on this media empire, going back to a 1967 merger between
Warner Brothers Studios and Seven Arts Productions, run by a frontman
for Bronfman partner Meyer Lansky. The new operation—soon merged with
Time publishing—became Time-Warner.A sampling of holdings in the
Time Warner octopus over the years:

Edgar Bronfman Jr. operated Seagram as his
personal plaything after Seagram bought Hollywood giant, MCA, bringing
MCA subsidiaries—Universal Studios and Universal Music—and TV channels
in Europe and Latin America into Bronfman hands.Last but far from
least: With the Rothschilds, the Oppenheimers of South Africa and the
late Armand Hammer, Bronfman money bankrolled the move into the United
States by Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, now a major influence (begins at 44 min.)
over the American “conservative” movement.

Cindy and John McCain.

Bronfman’s Connections to John McCain

The
Bronfmans were the “godfathers” behind the career of Arizona Sen. John
McCain (R), Israel’s most outspoken advocate in Congress. McCain’s $150
million fortune comes from his marriage to Cindy Hensley who inherited
one of the nation’s largest beer distribution companies fromher father,
Jim Hensley.

Hensley made his money as a henchman of Kemper Marley
who, for 40 years, was political boss of Arizona and the Lansky
syndicate’s front man in the Gem State. The Bronfmans set Marley up in
business and after Hensley took the rap for Marley in a criminal case,
Hensley’s reward was the beer business now in McCain family hands.

Sara Bronfman, humanitarian and human rights activist (born
1976) is the daughter of the billionaire philanthropist and former
Seagram chairman, Edgar Bronfman Sr.(...)

Work in Libya

Sara Bronfman first became involved in aiding Libya after traveling as a
delegate with the The Independent Libya Foundation (ILF) in November
2011, during the Arab Spring and after the death of Muammar Gaddafi. (...)

Sara Bronfman is also involved with the Canada-Libya Chamber of Commerce, which was founded on March 12, 2012. Bronfman and fiance Basit Igtet are the inaugural president and chairman of the board respectively.
Positioned to provide help and advice to the people of Libya, the
Chamber of Commerce discourage continued business with groups such as
SNC-Lavalin, who allegedly did business with the Gadaffi regime.[5] The
group is one of several working to restore the economy in the region.

Abdul Basit Igtet To Stand For The Presidency Of Libya TRIPOLI, Libya, April 9, 2014 /PRnewswire-- Abdul Basit Igtet, the businessman and author of "A Plan for Libya", confirmed today that he will stand for the post of President of Libya.
Mr. Igtet commented: "My main objective is that the Libyan people
should build their future on the firm foundations of a well-functioning
and prosperous country. I have come to the conclusion that the best way
for me to bring that about is to stand as President once the new
constitution is in place - when the Libyan people will have the
opportunity to make a democratic choice. I believe firmly that
the new President should be President of all the country - and not just
Tripoli. I will therefore shortly be opening offices in five key towns
outside the capital, to be able to listen and respond to all our
people. I know already how much Libyans are concerned about security,
and about basic services such as housing and roads and schools and
hospitals. But the problems in one town are different from the problems
in another. So, starting in two weeks time, I intend to travel round
our country and learn about the views of the local people. I will take
my professional team with me. They will listen and adapt our policy
plans to immediate needs. To the people of Libya, I say - our
priorities have to become your priorities, that is real democracy. My Presidency will be your Presidency. Your President for your Libya."

Basit Igtet et le va-t-en guerre sioniste juif Joe LiebermanCan A Business Entrepreneur Save Libya? By Carrie Sheffield for FORBES
A Benghazi native, Igtet fled the country as a political exile, finding
refuge in Switzerland, where he became a successful businessman. He
recently enlisted the law firm of foreign policy heavyweight former Sen.
Joe Lieberman in a deal likely to broker him meetings with Obama
administration officials and members of Congress. Lieberman’s office did
not return requests for comment.

dimanche 15 décembre 2013

Sources at Israeli Embassy in Washington say negative representation of Jewish state on television series like 'Veep,' 'House of Cards' justifies 'conspiracy theories about the Israeli and Jewish control of American politics'

Itamar Eichner
Published: 05.01.13

Popular American television shows are presenting Israel in a highly critical manner, sources in Israeli Embassy in Washington say, expressing their concern that the negative characterization will badly affect the Jewish state's image among viewers. One of the recent episodes of HBO comedy series "Veep," starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, focused on the Middle East conflict: The US vice president's daughter, a college student who has a boyfriend of Iranian descent, slams Israel in an essay based on Oscar-nominated film "5 Broken Cameras."

Kevin Spacey in 'House of Cards.' Jewish lobby against secretary of state candidate

The article undermines the relationship between the White House and the Jewish lobby, forcing the vice president to schedule a damage control interview. But the setting is quite unhelpful: She is seen discussing the friendship between America and the Jewish state with a pig roast in the background.

An episode in American political drama series "House of Cards" is also said to have presented Israel in a critical manner: In order to thwart the president's choice for secretary of state, Representative Francis Underwood (played by Kevin Spacey) uses an editorial published by the candidate 30 years earlier in his college student newspaper, in which he criticized Israel's "illegal occupation" of Palestinian land.

Jewish organizations rush to accuse the candidate of being anti-Semitic, and although he repeatedly claims that he did not write the article, the president is forced to withdraw the nomination.

"These series present Israel as a country which one should be very careful not to offend, and that anyone daring to criticize it is reprimanded by the Jewish lobby," a senior state official says. "This justifies all conspiracy theories about the Israeli and Jewish control of American politics."(...)

Hollywood Is ‘Owned’ by the Arabs
New
book by well-known Jewish writer exposes secret story behind popular
mainstream legend and who first put the myth into circulation . . .
by Michael Collins Piper
In
recent years Internet icon Alex Jones rocked the world of independent
media when he proclaimed his judgment that “Hollywood is owned by the
Arabs.” In fact—many doubts about Jones’s declaration
notwithstanding—this was not the first time a bigmedia voice put this
theme before the American public.
As far back as 1976, the premise
that “the Arabs” were grabbing control of the American media was central
to the plot of a popular Hollywood motion picture called “Network.”
This was the legendary film in which a fictional television news anchor,
Howard Beale, went mad while live on the air and famously told his
audience to shout out their windows the now-famous war-whoop:
“I’m as
mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Among Beales’s
complaints was that the Arabs were taking over the American economy and
the broadcast media in particular.
The film was a box-office
blockbuster, widely touted by themassmedia, and it captured 10 Academy
Award nominations, winning four, including the award for best actor,
given posthumously to the late Peter Finch who starred as Beale, the
so-called “mad prophet of the airwaves.”
But here’s the big secret
about “Network,” and this won’t surprise the more savvy among AFP’s
readers: The veteran screenwriter responsible for putting forth this
thesis—that “Hollywood is owned by the Arabs”—was a fervent, long-time
and quite publicly vocal American Jewish devotee of Israel, Sidney Aaron
“Paddy” Chayefsky who, at one juncture, was actually writing—on an
unpaid, volunteer basis—over-the-top, anti-Arab propaganda for the
Anti-Defamation League, one of the leading focal points of the
pro-Israel lobby in America.
Chayefsky was best known prior to
“Network” for having won Academy Awards for two classic films, “Marty”
in 1956 and “The Hospital” in 1972.
What is interesting, however,
about Chayefsky’s production for the screenplay “Network” is that it
came at a time when Chayefsky, who seldom focused on particular
political causes, was nonetheless a hardline Zionist.
These as well
as other little known details about Chayefsky appear in the pages of a
new book by Jewish writer Dave Itzkoff, a media writer for The New York
Times. Itzkoff’s book, Mad As Hell, is both a biography of Chayefsky and
the fascinating inside story of the making of “Network.”
Within the
pages of the book Itzkoff describes Chayefsky’s political focus. He
writes of “a growing fixation on the affairs of Israel (that was)
becoming increasingly apparent in Chayefsky’s public remarks, revealing a
more aggressive and admittedly paranoid streak.”
In one interview
Chayefsky claimed that all of the Jews in the world were, as Itzkoff put
it, “in danger of imminent genocide” in 1971. This pro-Israel obsession
resulted in Chayefsky’s work as a pro-Israel propagandist.
According
to Itzkoff, “Privately, Chayefsky channeled his fervor into uncredited
advertisements for the Anti-Defamation League, such as an announcement,
published at the height of the 1973 oil crisis that warned ‘These Arabs
would like you to believe that if we give in to their blackmail and
change our Mideast policy that everything will be just like it used to
be.’”
Prior to doing “Network,” among Chayefsky’s intended projects
included “The Rabbi Mystery Show,” featuring a character described by
the screenwriter as “a retired and revered old rabbi,” who solved crimes
alongside his police officer son.
Chayefsky also struggled over a
screenplay for a never-produced film based in Palestine at the time of
Israel’s founding in which a young Jewish militant declares: “I’ll tell
you about your civilized world. . . . For 2,000 years, Jews have been
crucified, burnt at the stake, thrown to the lions, into the ovens, into
the gas chambers, crushed into ghettos, forcibly converted, exiled,
deported, slaughtered by Cossacks and peasants, Greeks, Romans,
Spaniards, Frenchmen, Englishmen, anybody and everybody, popes and
Protestants and every mad minister from Haman to Hitler—and I’m tired of
it. . . .We’re an endangered species, sowe don’t trust the civilized
world anymore. We’ll take care of our own survival. Don’t come to me
with your bloody Christian hands and scold me about killing. . . .We
kill to survive. We kill so that we and our descendants shall live.”
Chayefsky’s proposed film ended with a squad of British police officers being gunned down by the heroine of the story.
The
film “Network” is really where Chayefsky made his mark putting Zionist
propaganda before the world. In his preparatory notes for the
screenplay, Chayefsky wrote, “The basic joke is that the networks are so
powerful that they can make true what isn’t true and never even
existed.” Clearly, Chayefsky understood the power of the media and that
became evident when he rose to fame.
According to Chayefsky’s
biographer, Itzkoff, “Network” incorporated “all the angst, anxiety and
paranoia” that Chayefsky had ever felt. One of Chayefsky’s concerns was
what Itzkoff described as “the creeping influence of foreign powers—Arab
powers—in the American economy.” And Chayefsky felt this supposedly
growing influence was being ignored.
If there is any doubt about
Chayefsky’s political and religious orientation, Itzkoff notes that when
“Network” director Sidney Lumet suggested actress Vanessa Redgrave for a
starring role in the film, Chayefsky objected saying that Ms. Redgrave
was a supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
When Lumet responded “Paddy, that’s blacklisting,” Chayefsky replied, “Not when a Jew does it to a Gentile.”
So
the inside story of “Network” and the propaganda value that it has had
for the Zionist cause has clearly now been revealed in this new
biography of Chayefsky.
Perhaps commentators might want to read the
book before once again making the ridiculous claim that “Hollywood is
owned by the Arabs.”
——
Michael Collins Piper is an author,
journalist, lecturer and radio show host. He has spoken in Russia,
Malaysia, Iran, Abu Dhabi, Japan, Canada and, of course, the United
States. He is the author of Final Judgment, The New Jerusalem, The High
Priests of War, Dirty Secrets, My First Days in the White House, The New
Babylon, Share the Wealth: Huey Long vs Wall Street, The Judas Goats:
The Enemy Within, Target: Traficant and The Golem: Israel’s Nuclear Hell
Bomb. You can order any of these books with a credit card by calling
AFP/FAB toll free at 1-888-699-6397 or calling FAB direct at
202-547-5585 to inquire about pricing and S&H fees.

Stories about Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan's alleged double life have been circulating for years.

Now, the Israeli businessman behind hits like "Pretty Woman," ''Fight Club" and "L.A. Confidential" has finally come forth with a stunning admission — for years he served as an Israeli spy, buying arms on its behalf and boosting its alleged nuclear program.

In a far-reaching interview aired Monday with Israel's Channel 2 TV's flagship investigative program "Uvda," Milchan detailed a series of clandestine affairs in which he was involved and particularly how he helped purchase technologies Israel allegedly needed to operate nuclear bombs.

"I did it for my country and I'm proud of it," said Milchan, who ran a successful fertilizer company in Israel before making it big in Hollywood.

Even there, he says he continued with his clandestine work while maintaining close ties with Israel's leadership.

According to an unauthorized biography published two years ago, Milchan worked for Israel's now-defunct Bureau of Scientific Relations, known as Lekem, which worked to obtain information for secret defense programs. The bureau was disbanded in 1987 after it was implicated in the spying affair for which Jonathan Pollard, a civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy, was sentenced to life in prison.

Milchan also says other big Hollywood names were connected to his covert affairs.

"When I came to Hollywood I detached myself completely from my physical activities to dedicate myself to what I really wanted — filmmaking," he said. "(But) sometimes it gets mixed up."

The 68-year-old Milchan founded the New Regency film company and has produced more than 120 movies since the 1970s, working closely with directors such as Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, Sergio Leone and Oliver Stone. He forged an especially close relationship with Robert De Niro, who along with actors Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck, is featured in Uvda's broadcast.

"I had heard but I wasn't sure," De Niro said, of Milchan's activities.
"I did ask him once and he told me that he was an Israeli and of course he would do these things for his country."

Arnon
Milchan appeared in Los Angeles, California, on 18 September 2008 Arnon
Milchan, shown in a September 2008 file photo, said he had long had to
beat back Hollywood rumours he was an arms dealerA Hollywood producer
behind hit films such as Pretty Woman and Fight Club has said he spied
for Israel in support of its nuclear programme.

Head
of New Regency productions joined by pal Robert De Niro in Israeli
television special that details his covert side gig as an arms dealer
for Israel, and how he recruited director Sydney Pollack to help the
cause.Note: Pollack joue le rôle de Victor Ziegler, l'homme
riche qui loue les services d'une prostituée droguée qui tombe dans le
coma au début du film Eyes Wide Shut. Un film qui a attiré des problèmes
à son réalisateur... qui n'a pas survécu à son film.

RUSSIA TODAY--Hollywood 'Fight Club' producer was Israeli spy with nuclear script
Arnon
Milchan, renowned producer of such Hollywood hits as "Pretty Woman,"
"Fight Club" and "LA Confidential", has come forth with perhaps his
greatest story of all: he was an Israeli spy who helped boost the
country’s nuclear program in the 70s and 80s.In an in depth interview
broadcast on Monday with Israel's Channel 2 flagship investigative
program ‘Uvda’ (Fact), the 68-year-old producer discussed his
involvement in clandestine arms deals and efforts to buy technologies
Israel allegedly needed to make nuclear weapons.The expose followed
Milchan's career from the late '1960s and early '1970s, when he was a
young and successful businessman in the United States who had a close
relationship with current Israeli President Shimon Peres.Peres, who at
the time was helping set up the Negev Nuclear Research Center, tasked
Milchan with acquiring equipment and information necessary to get the
project off the ground.

Longtime
Hollywood film producer Arnon Milchan says they did, in an interview
set to air Monday on the Israeli investigative journalism program
'Uvda.'

Hollywood is always on the lookout for blockbuster stories, and this
coming Monday it will get the juicy details about how a producer working
in Tinseltown since the late 1970s led a double life as an arms dealer
and Israeli intelligence operative.

Arnon
Milchan, the Israeli producer of such smash hits as "Fight Club,"
"Pretty Woman," and hundreds of other films, is opening up for the first
time ever about his involvement in clandestine deals to acquire arms
for Israel and his work to promote the country's alleged nuclear
program.

The
film tycoon sat down with Israeli investigative journalist Ilana Dayan
for the season premiere of her current affairs show "Uvda" ("Fact"), in
which he discusses his efforts to engage Hollywood colleagues in his
work for Israel's Defense Ministry. Keshet's show is scheduled to air
Monday, November 25, on Israel's Channel 2.

This
isn’t the first time Milchan's role in Israeli arms dealings and
intelligence has surfaced: Just two years ago authors Meir Doron and
Joseph Gelman published a book titled “Confidential: The Life of Secret
Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan" – which alleged that
Milchan was an operative for Israel's Bureau of Scientific Relations.
The bureau, headed by spy-masters Benjamin Blumberg and Rafi Eitan,
gathered information for secret defense-related programs, including
Israel's alleged nuclear program. The bureau was closed after Jonathan
Pollard was arrested for spying on behalf of Israel in 1986.

The
"Uvda" report does, however, contain some shocking new details about
Milchan's work, including claims that other Hollywood bigwigs like the
legendary, late director Sydney Pollack and at least one other Academy
Award-winning actor, both figured into his work for Israel.

The
report reveals that Pollack, who died in 2008, acquired arms and other
military equipment for Israel in the 1970s. When asked if Pollack knew
about the details of the deals, Milchan tells Dayan, "Pollack knew, but I
didn't want to scare him because he's American… He could have said
'no.' He said 'no' many times, but he also said 'yes' many times."

Milchan
also tells Dayan that he used at least one big-name actor's star
quality to lure U.S. scientist Arthur Biehl – an expert on nuclear
weapons and a co-developer of the hydrogen bomb – to a meeting.
According to the report, Milchan invited Biehl to the actor's home under
the pretense that the actor was seeking scientific advice for a project
he was working on.

Milchan
said he thought Biehl would cooperate because, "Anyone who lives in
California is a 'star-fucker…' They hear 'star'…they come running."

The
producer also confides in Dayan that his double-life wasn't always easy
to lead, particularly when what he really wanted was to dedicate
himself to filmmaking. "In Hollywood they don’t like working with an
arms dealer, ideologically," he said. "[They don't like working] with
someone who lives off selling machine guns and killing. Instead of
someone talking to me about a script, I had to spend half an hour
explaining that I'm not an arms dealer..."

Milchan
continued, "If people knew how many times I risked my life, back and
forth, again and again, for my country. And suddenly, [I have to] defend
myself – 'I'm not an arms dealer, I don't sell guns, I don't sell
rockets ' I should have been aware of that, of what I'll go through, and
said, 'Fuck you.' You know what, I did it for my country and I'm proud
of it."

The show also features interviews with Robert De Niro, Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck and other major Hollywood players.

Meanwhile,
New Regency films, Milchan's company, is working on four films slated
for release in 2013-14, including "Noah," a Darren Aronofsky-directed
take on the Biblical flood story starring Crowe, Emma Watson and Anthony
Hopkins.

www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.560168HAARETZ--Hollywood producer opens up about past as Israeli operative
'It was like being a 20-something guy whose country decided to let him be James Bond,' says Arnon Milchan.
By Allison Kaplan Sommer | Nov. 26, 2013 | 1:17 AM | 4

Move over, "Argo." On Monday night, the real-life story of the
interaction between the glitter of Hollywood and the intrigue of
clandestine international arms deals aired on Israeli television.

After weeks of hype and anticipation,
the investigative program “Uvda” broadcast a show telling the story
behind the glitzy career of one of the most influential figures in
Hollywood: Arnon Milchan, the Israeli producer of such hit movies as
"Pretty Woman," “Fight Club” and “L.A. Confidential.”

Though
it wasn’t the first time Milchan’s double life as an arms dealer and
Israeli intelligence operative has been reported, it was the first time
the Israeli-born Milchan, a multi-billionaire, discussed it openly in
front of the cameras, and the first time some of the movie stars and
studio executives who know him spoke about it on the record.

The
show traced Milchan's career from the late '60s and early '70s, when he
was a young and successful businessman in the United States who had a
close relationship with Shimon Peres. At the time, Peres was in the
midst of creating the Dimona nuclear reactor, and Milchan began helping
in the effort to acquire equipment and knowledge for Israel’s nuclear
project through the secretive agency Lakam, Israel’s Bureau of
Scientific Relations.

“Do
you know what it was like to be a 20-something guy whose country
decided to let him be James Bond? Wow! The action! That was exciting,”
Milchan said. "Uvda" reporter Ilana Dayan described how Milchan would
set up bank accounts and companies, all used to acquire material and
equipment for the agency, while working for spy masters Rafi Eitan and
Benjamin Blumberg. Dayan reported that at the peak of Milchan's
activity, he was operating 30 companies in 17 different countries.

In
the 1970s, Milchan brokered deals for hundreds of millions of dollars
between Israel and U.S. companies for helicopters, missiles and other
equipment, "Uvda" reported. Though records showed that his company made
profits off the deals - sometimes as much as 60 percent - Milchan
insisted on camera that he never kept the money and that every penny
made its way back to Israel.

The
show revealed that Milchan convinced a German engineer to take home
classified documents from a safe where he worked: plans that detailed
how to construct a nuclear facility that Israel desperately needed but
that no state would share for any amount of money. Saying the engineer
"couldn't be bought," Milchan said he persuaded him to leave them on a
table and went out to dinner with his wife on the understanding that
someone would enter the house and photograph them.

Another
revelation is that director Sydney Pollack, who died in 2008, was
Milchan’s business partner in many of his activities. The director of
“Tootsie” and “Out of Africa,” Milchan said, “was my partner in
aerospace manufacturing and airplanes, all kinds of things.” When asked
if Pollack knew of and participated in all of Milchan’s activities,
Milchan said: “He had to decide what he was willing to do and what he
was not willing to do. On a lot of things he said no. On a lot of other
things he said yes."

The
acquisition of nuclear triggers for Israel by Milchan's company Milco
was what nearly got him into serious trouble when the FBI discovered
that they were shipped to Israel without the proper licensing, which led
to the 1985 indictment of aerospace executive Richard Kelly Smyth, who
used one of Milchan’s companies to ship triggers to Israel. Milchan
claimed on the show that “I didn’t know Israel ordered the triggers. I
didn’t even know what triggers were.”

Robert
De Niro, who was making a movie with Milchan at the time, said his
friend “told me that he was an Israeli and he of course would do these
things for his country - there was something with the little things that
trigger a nuclear thing … I remember asking Arnon something about that,
being friends. I was curious, not in an accusatory way, I just wanted
to know, and he said, 'Yes, I’m Israeli, that’s my country.'”

After
the trigger incident, which was followed by the 1986 arrest of Jonathan
Pollard for spying on behalf of Israel, the Bureau of Scientific
Relations was shut down.

Milchan
also admitted to having used his Hollywood and media connections to
help the South African apartheid regime in its attempts to polish its
international image, in exchange for helping Israel acquire uranium.
Dayan suggested on camera that perhaps his current role as co-producer
of the hit movie “12 Years a Slave,” set in the United States before the
Civil War, was on some level an attempt to atone for that sin. Milchan
nodded and agreed that it very well might be.

When
Milchan’s friends and business associates were asked if the rumors of
his activities on behalf of Israel’s military had done anything to
tarnish his reputation in the entertainment industry, they said no,
adding that the success of his films and his personal charm trumped any
misgivings. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch told Dayan: “Hollywood is a very
Jewish industry. Very pro-Israel. Many would honor him for it. Others
might be a bit frightened by it, but that’s all right.”

If a man living in America were to go on television and admit
that he spent years stealing U.S. defense secrets on behalf of another
country, and was proud of what he had done, Attorney General Eric Holder
would immediately fly into a rage and call for arrest and prosecution
under the Espionage Act, wouldn’t he? Well, maybe not, if the recent revelations
made by Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan regarding his spying for
Israel are anything to go by. There has long been a certain acceptance
both in the media and within the government that something done on
behalf of or together with Israel is somehow not subject to the same
laws of physics that govern the rest of the political universe. I recall
how in the 1980s while I was working in the Central Intelligence Agency
base in Istanbul, a delegation from the American Jewish Committee
passed through and briefed the Consul General and his staff regarding
Jonathan Pollard, who had recently been arrested. They claimed that
Pollard was some kind of nut case who could not possibly have been a
real spy for Israel. The Consul General, who should have known better
than to buy into the obvious damage control, expressed the same view
during the weekly staff meeting. When I and several others challenged
the credibility of his viewpoint, he shrugged and smiled.

We Americans have since learned
that Pollard was not only a fully controlled and paid spy for Israel,
he was one of a network of spies recruited by handler Rafi Eitan. The
Israelis were so well informed regarding U.S. defense secrets that they
frequently were able to ask Pollard to obtain specific files, by name
and number, that they particularly wanted to see. Pollard eventually
handed over to the Israelis a roomful of documents. Many in the
intelligence community believe that the information he provided, some of
which was passed on to the Russians and others, continue to do damage
to U.S. technical collection capabilities to this day. Pollard, who has
been given Israeli citizenship and is widely regarded as a hero by the
country’s leadership, is serving a life sentence in federal prison.
Demands from the Israeli government to free him are a regular occurrence
whenever the American President and Israeli Prime Minister meet. Another spy
in the Eitan network was Ben-Ami Kadish, an engineer at the Picatinny
Arsenal in New Jersey, who provided nuclear and weapons development
secrets to his Israeli case officer Yosef Yagur, who also met with
Pollard.
Israel, to be sure, obtains much of its information from the United
States openly, by walking into an office at the Pentagon or on Capitol
Hill and being handed a file. Or over lunch, as when Pentagon analyst
Larry Franklin provided intelligence
on Iran to American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) staffers
Keith Weissman and Steve Rosen, as well as to officials in the Israeli
Embassy. Franklin went to jail and is now waiting on tables in West
Virginia, but Rosen and Weissman, charged under the Espionage Act,
walked due to some maneuvers pulled by an obliging federal judge who was
clearly acting on behalf of a George W. Bush administration that did
not want the case to go forward.
Less well known than either the Pollard or AIPAC spying cases is the
story of how Israel obtained the technology and raw materials for its
secret nuclear arsenal. In the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy
learned that Israel was developing a nuclear weapon from a CIA report.
He told the Israelis to terminate
their program or risk losing U.S. political and economic support but
died before he could confirm that the project had ended. His successor
Lyndon Johnson was famously tight with Israel’s friends in the United
States. Johnson did not insist that Israel end its nuclear program and,
as he was privy to the CIA report about the weapons program, may have
deliberately chosen to look the other way when Israel was stealing both
American technology and uranium to construct its weapons.
Israel always features prominently in the annual FBI report
called “Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage.” The 2005
report states, “Israel has an active program to gather proprietary
information within the United States. These collection activities are
primarily directed at obtaining information on military systems and
advanced computing applications that can be used in Israel’s sizable
armaments industry.” Israel has sold advanced weapons systems to China
that are believed to incorporate technology developed by American
companies, including the Python-3 air-to-air missile and the Delilah
cruise missile. There is evidence that Israel has also stolen Patriot
missile avionics to incorporate into its own Arrow system and that it used U.S. technology
obtained in its Lavi fighter development program, which was funded by
the U.S. taxpayer to the tune of $1.5 billion, to help the Chinese
develop their own J-10 fighter.
The Mossad frequently uses so-called sayanim in its espionage,
which means diaspora Jews that it recruits on the basis of a shared
religion or concern for the security of Israel. The threat coming from
Israeli Embassy operatives inside the United States is such that the
Department of Defense once warned that Jewish Americans would likely be the targets of intelligence approaches.
Israel accelerated its nuclear program after the death of President Kennedy. By 1965, it had obtained
the raw material for a bomb consisting of U.S. government-owned highly
enriched weapons grade uranium obtained from a company in Pennsylvania
called NUMEC. NUMEC was a supplier of enriched uranium for government
projects but it was also from the start a front for the Israeli nuclear
program, with its chief funder David Lowenthal, a leading Zionist,
traveling to Israel at least once a month where he would meet with an
old friend Meir Amit, who headed Israeli intelligence. NUMEC covered the
shipment of enriched uranium to Israel by claiming the metal was
“lost,” losses that totaled nearly six hundred pounds, enough to produce
dozens of weapons. In 1968, NUMEC received a visit from spymaster Rafi
Eitan, the same Rafi Eitan who later was involved with Jonathan Pollard.
There was also physical evidence relating to the diversion of the
uranium. Refined uranium has a technical signature that permits
identification of its source. Traces of uranium from NUMEC were
identified by Department of Energy inspectors in Israel in 1978. The
Central Intelligence Agency has also looked into the diversion of
enriched uranium from the NUMEC plant and has concluded that it was part
of a broader program to obtain the technology and raw materials for a
nuclear device for Israel.
With the uranium in hand, the advanced technology needed to make a nuclear weapon was still needed, which is where Milchan comes into the story.
Arnon Milchan was born in Israel but emigrated to the United States and
eventually wound up as the owner of a major movie studio, New Regency
Films. In his November 25th interview on Israeli television
Milchan admitted that he had spent his many years in Hollywood as an
agent for Israeli intelligence, helping obtain embargoed technologies
and materials that enabled Israel to develop a nuclear weapon. He worked
for Israel’s Bureau of Science and Liaison acquisition division of
Mossad, referred to as the LAKAM agency. It was the same organization
that ran Jonathan Pollard and Ben-Ami Kadish.
Milchan, who is a long-time resident of the United States and still
has significant business interests in this country, explained “I did it
for my country and I’m proud of it.” He also said that “other big
Hollywood names were connected to [his] covert affairs.” Among other
successes, he obtained through his company Heli Trading 800 krytons, the
sophisticated triggers for nuclear weapons. The devices were acquired
from the California top-secret defense contractor MILCO International.
Milchan personally recruited MILCO’s president Richard Kelly Smyth as an
agent before turning him over to another Heli Trading employee Benjamin
Netanyahu for handling. Smyth was eventually arrested in 1985 and
cooperated in his interrogation by the FBI before being sentenced to
prison, meaning that the Federal government likely knew about both
Milchan and Netanyahu at the time but declined to act. For what it’s
worth, Milchan now improbably claims that he did not know about the
kryton triggers.
I would like to think that the next time Arnon Milchan arrives at LA
International Airport on business he will be met by Federal Marshalls
and FBI agents before being whisked off to some nice quiet place for a
chat. But don’t bet on it. Milchan’s confession suggests that he
believes himself to be bullet proof. As in the case of Rosen and
Weissman his likely defense would be that he was only doing it for
Israel, an ally and friend, which itself is a matter of perception to
say the least. That Israel has an unacknowledged nuclear arsenal that
violates the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the U.S. and even
Iran have signed but Israel has not, undeniably contributes to the
destabilization of the Middle East. A secret nuclear power with a
government that many would consider to be somewhat paranoid is certainly
not in the United States interest. And some Americans might also be a
bit unsettled to learn how Israel’s nuclear capability was acquired by
way of Hollywood.Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

Please note that I use the word Israeli to refer to anyone of Jewish
descent who supports Israel over the US. They are willing to defend the
attack on the USS Liberty by Israel and the controlled demolition of the
World Trade Center Towers 1, 2 and 7 on 911 by the Mossad.
Mordecai Vanunu was the original whistleblower. In 1986 he told the
world that Israel had nuclear weapons publishing photos of the secret
Dimona works in the British press. He said Prime Minister Ben Gurion
ordered the assassination of JFK because the President opposed Israel’s
acquisition of nuclear weapons. Ben Gurion resigned in protest over
JFK’s Israeli policies. Vanunu also wrote a letter in 1997 saying that
there was even a link between the assassination of Kennedy and Israel’s
launching of the 1967 war.
Final Judgement: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination was
originally published 20 years ago in January. Michael Collins Piper in
this book argued that the Israelis killed Kennedy. Vanunu endorsed
Piper’s book.
Read more here

Whatever happened to honor among thieves? When the National
Security Agency was caught eavesdropping on German Chancellor Angela
Merkel’s cell phone, it was considered a rude way to treat a friend. Now
U.S. intelligence officials are saying—albeit very quietly, behind
closed doors on Capitol Hill—that our Israeli “friends” have gone too
far with their spying operations here.

According to classified briefings on legislation that would lower
visa restrictions on Israeli citizens, Jerusalem’s efforts to steal U.S.
secrets under the cover of trade missions and joint defense technology
contracts have “crossed red lines.”

Israel’s espionage activities in America are unrivaled and unseemly,
counterspies have told members of the House Judiciary and Foreign
Affairs committees, going far beyond activities by other close allies,
such as Germany, France, the U.K. and Japan. A congressional staffer
familiar with a briefing last January called the testimony “very
sobering…alarming…even terrifying.” Another staffer called it
“damaging.”

“No other country close to the United States continues to cross the
line on espionage like the Israelis do,” said a former congressional
staffer who attended another classified briefing in late 2013, one of
several in recent months given by officials from the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS), the State Department, the FBI and the National
Counterintelligence Directorate.

The intelligence agencies didn’t go into specifics, the former aide
said, but cited “industrial espionage—folks coming over here on trade
missions or with Israeli companies working in collaboration with
American companies, [or] intelligence operatives being run directly by
the government, which I assume meant out of the [Israeli] Embassy.”

An Israeli Embassy spokesman flatly denied the charges Tuesday after initially declining to comment. Aaron Sagui told Newsweek "Israel
doesn't conduct espionage operations in the United States, period. We
condemn the fact that such outrageous, false allegations are being
directed against Israel." Representatives of two U.S. intelligence
agencies, while acknowledging problems with Israeli spies, would not
discuss classified testimony for the record. The FBI would neither
confirm nor deny it briefed Congress. A State Department representative
would say only that staff in its Consular and Israel Palestinian Affairs
offices briefed members of Congress on visa reciprocity issues.

Of course, the U.S. spies on Israel, too. “It was the last place you wanted to go on vacation,” a former top CIA operative told Newsweek, because of heavy-handed Israeli surveillance. But the level of Israeli espionage here now has rankled U.S. counterspies.

“I don’t think anyone was surprised by these revelations,” the former
aide said. “But when you step back and hear…that there are no other
countries taking advantage of our security relationship the way the
Israelis are for espionage purposes, it is quite shocking. I mean, it
shouldn’t be lost on anyone that after all the hand-wringing over
[Jonathan] Pollard, it’s still going on.”

Israel and pro-Israel groups in America have long lobbied U.S.
administrations to free Pollard, a former U.S. naval intelligence
analyst serving a life sentence since 1987 for stealing tens of
thousands of secrets for Israel. (U.S. counterintelligence officials
suspect that Israel traded some of the Cold War-era information to
Moscow in exchange for the emigration of Russian Jews.) After denying
for over a decade that Pollard was its paid agent, Israel apologized and
promised not to spy on U.S. soil again. Since then, more Israeli spies
have been arrested and convicted by U.S. courts.

I.C. Smith, a former top FBI counterintelligence specialist during the Pollard affair, tells Newsweek,
“In the early 1980s, dealing with the Israelis was, for those assigned
that area, extremely frustrating. The Israelis were supremely confident
that they had the clout, especially on the Hill, to basically get [away]
with just about anything. This was the time of the Criteria Country
List—later changed to the National Security Threat List—and I found it
incredible that Taiwan and Vietnam, for instance, were on [it], when
neither country had conducted activities that remotely approached the
Pollard case, and neither had a history of, or a comparable capability
to conduct, such activities.”

While all this was going on, Israel was lobbying hard to be put on
the short list of countries (38 today) whose citizens don’t need visas
to visit here.

Until recently, the major sticking point was the Jewish state’s
discriminatory and sometimes harsh treatment of Arab-Americans and U.S.
Palestinians seeking to enter Israel. It has also failed to meet other
requirements for the program, such as promptly and regularly reporting
lost and stolen passports, officials say—a problem all the more pressing
since Iranians were found to have boarded the missing Malaysia Airlines
flight with stolen passports.

“But this is the first time congressional aides have indicated that
intelligence and national security concerns also are considerations in
weighing Israel’s admission into the visa waiver program,” Jonathan
Broder, the foreign and defense editor for CQ Roll Call, a Capitol Hill
news site, wrote last month. He quoted a senior House aide as saying,
“The U.S. intelligence community is concerned that adding Israel to the
visa waiver program would make it easier for Israeli spies to enter the
country.”

The Israelis “thought they could just snap their fingers” and get
friends in Congress to legislate visa changes, a Hill aide said, instead
of going through the required hoops with DHS. But facing resistance
from U.S. intelligence, Israel recently signaled it’s willing to work
with DHS, both Israeli and U.S. officials say. “Israel is interested in
entering into the visa waiver program and is taking concrete steps to
meet its conditions,” Israeli Embassy spokesman Aaron Sagui told Newsweek.
“Most recently, the U.S. and Israel decided to establish a working
group to advance the process,” Sagui added, saying that “Deputy Minister
of Foreign Affairs Zeev Elkin will head the Israeli delegation.” He
refused to say when the Elkin delegation was coming.

Congressional aides snorted at the announcement. “The Israelis
haven’t done s**t to get themselves into the visa waiver program,” the
former congressional aide said, echoing the views of two other House
staffers working on the issue. “I mean, if the Israelis got themselves
into this visa waiver program and if we were able to address this
[intelligence community] concern—great, they’re a close ally, there are
strong economic and cultural links between the two countries, it would
be wonderful if more Israelis could come over here without visas. I’m
sure it would spur investment and tourist dollars in our economy and so
on and so forth. But what I find really funny is they haven’t done s**t
to get into the program. They think that their friends in Congress can
get them in, and that’s not the case. Congress can lower one or two of
the barriers, but they can’t just legislate the Israelis in.”

The path to visa waivers runs through DHS and can take years to
navigate. For Chile, it was three years, a government official said on a
not-for-attribution basis; for Taiwan, “several.” Requirements include
“enhanced law enforcement and security-related data sharing with the
United States; timely reporting of lost and stolen passports; and the
maintenance of high counterterrorism, law enforcement, border control,
aviation and document security standards,” a DHS statement said.

Israel is not even close to meeting those standards, a congressional
aide said. “You’ve got to have machine-readable passports in place—the
e-passports with a data chip in them. The Israelis have only just
started to issue them to diplomats and senior officials and so forth,
and that probably won’t be rolled out to the rest of their population
for another 10 years.”

But U.S. counterspies will get the final word. And since Israel is as
likely to stop spying here as it is to give up matzo for Passover, the
visa barriers are likely to stay up.

As Paul Pillar, the CIA’s former national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, told Newsweek,
old habits are hard to break: Zionists were dispatching spies to
America before there even was an Israel, to gather money and materials
for the cause and later the fledgling state. Key components for Israel’s
nuclear bombs were clandestinely obtained here. “They’ve found creative
and inventive ways,” Pillar said, to get what they want.

“If we give them free rein to send people over here, how are we going
to stop that?” the former congressional aide asked. “They’re incredibly
aggressive. They’re aggressive in all aspects of their relationship
with the United States. Why would their intelligence relationship with
us be any different?”